The New Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region
This easy-to-use guide features 545 North American bird species and more than 2,000 stunning color photographs. And yet it's portable enough to fit in your pocket! The photographs cover all significant plumages, including male, female, summer, winter, immature, morphs, important subspecies, and birds in flight.
The guide includes:
The newest scientific and common names and phylogenetic order Special help for identifying birds in flight through important clues of behavior, plumage, and shape Detailed descriptions of songs and calls important behavioral information and key habitat preferences.
The newest range maps, detailing species' winter, summer, year-round ranges, and migration routes .
Whether you are a novice or experienced birder, this new Stokes guide will take your birding to the next level.
Reviews (159)
Easy to use, Makes watching my birds enjoyable.
The Stokes Field Guide to Birds, Eastern Region is the perfect bird identification guide. I purchased this book so I could identify the birds in my backyard around my bird feeders. My husband and I were always asking each other "What's that bird"? with this book we can identify them easily. The photographs show Adult Male, Adult Female and Juvenile birds and seasonal plumage changes. There is a map that shows the area that the bird frequents. The descriptions include physical movements that help discern one bird from another and even describe the bird's song. I frequently reference this book and it has made watching my bird feeder enjoyable.
Good Guide, Amazing Pictures
I have a number of bird guides, and each has their strong points. Stokes really shines in two areas for me. First, the pictures are just fantastic. Each page is dedicated to one bird, and there are generally 4-6 high quality photos on each page. They do a good job of showing significant differences in male/female, adult/juvenile, and summer/winter appearances. My only complaint about the photos is there are no arrows or indicators to highlight field marks or key identifying characteristics. The second thing I really like about Stokes are the thorough and detailed physical descriptions. Other beginner-friendly guides can be far more terse, while Stokes always takes the space to describe adult summer, adult winter, juvenile, juvenile/1st summer, immature/2yr, at breeding, etc. wherever it is appropriate to do so. This is just an all-around great field book for any level of birding, but I will point out that you need to know enough about species groups to get you to the right group. There isn't a quick reference or overview to help direct you to the right grouping, so it helps if you thumb through the whole guide before getting into the field to familiarize yourself with the various bird groups and characteristics. This isn't a big knock on Stokes as this is common to many guides.
Great book but not quite as easy to use as the earlier version
This is a great field guide, but the older version (bottom) with small staggered color indicators for different classes of birds made it easier for me to quickly locate a specific bird. In the new book (top) , the color indicators are on top of each other.
Great photos, but not pocket sized
Maybe I am fussy, but when the description says "And yet it's portable enough to fit in your pocket," I believed them. It's a lie. I like the book, but it's not going to fit in any normal jacket pockets. Another personal preference/criticism is the way they organized the birds, ie., everything called a finch ought to be next to each other, but purple and house finch are separated by several birds from the goldfinches. I'm sure some doctor of ornithology could cite a reason, but I don't care. Also, I learned birds from a Golden field guide, which is pocket sized, but also has check marks next to each bird in the back index, so you can mark your list. That would have been an easy addition to this guide. Helpful? Say so. Thanks.
This is the best book for identifying birds!
The other field guides have their good points, but Stokes has the BEST pictures. Stokes not only includes pictures of both male and female, but of juveniles at several different stages of their development. For species which look alike such as hawks, Stokes has pictures of them from various angles including the underside of their wings. This book is best used for identification. It does not have detailed information about behavior, feeding or nesting. Perhaps that is what makes it small enough to carry around as a field guide.
Great bird identification book
We are enjoying the birds in our yard and on hikes. This books photos are very helpful with identification. Our Peterson book drawings are not representative enough of the various stages of the birds. This does the trick.
Easier identification
I bought this as a companion to Stokes older edition. The newer version is handy for identifying birds, updated ranges, very nice photos and more of them. For behavior and other interesting facts of life I refer to the older version. We keep both at hand.
Good for beginner birders
Great book for beginner birders, like my husband and I were when I bought this. Easy to look up most birds, as the book is broken up into major colors. So, quick to find a bird in the book. Great way to help birders identify birds.
Excellent field guide
The new Stokes Field Guides combine stunning photography with important notes to aid in identification. Unlike other guides which rely on one or two photographs per bird, the Stokes have included up to eleven photos (for those pesky gulls!) so that birders can easily see important variations in plumage for each species. At only 8.5" x 5.5", this book packs easily. The Eastern Guide, along with the Western Guide are must-haves for any birder. Thanks, Lillian and Don!
Fantastic for identifying birds!
I have been a birder for over 50 years and have numerous bird guides. Stokes Field Guide is one of the very best! I love it for either beginners or seasoned birders for several reasons. It uses actual pictures of birds for really easy identification. There are wonderful learning pages to help identify hard-to-ID birds. Location maps are included on each bird page so even a rank amateur can see if their identification is possible. It contains so much information and yet it is easy to carry when birding. I would highly recommend this guide to any and all those interested in birds. A truly outstanding Field Guide!
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